Donald Murray changed the way I taught writing.  His
influence has helped shape the NWP.   I'm forwarding
an e-mail from Britton Gildersleeve:


I thought some of you might like to know this…He was a
great writing teacher, and a very nice man… A good
friend to WP.

Britton




Columnist Donald Murray dies at 82

Pulitzer winner penned Globe's 'Now and Then'
By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff  |  December 31, 2006

Five days ago, in his last "Now and Then" column
published in the Globe before he died, Donald Murray
was as in love with writing as he had been as a
teenager -- and just as anxious.

"Each time I sit down to write I don't know if I can
do it," he wrote. "The flow of writing is always a
surprise and a challenge. Click the computer on and I
am 17 again, wanting to write and not knowing if I
can."

He could, and did, for decades -- winning a Pulitzer
Prize at 29 for editorials he wrote for the Boston
Herald, teaching writing at the University of New
Hampshire, publishing book after book, penning column
after column.

"He basically lived through his writing," said his
daughter Anne. "In some ways that was more real to him
than his real life. Everything had to be sifted
through his writing -- the good and bad. His whole
life was writing."

Mr. Murray, who lived in Durham, N.H., was visiting a
friend in Beverly yesterday when he died, apparently
of heart failure. At 82, he was about to launch a
website where aspiring writers could apprentice with
the aging master, extending his career from the days
of typewriter carbon copies to cyberspace.

For two decades, Mr. Murray wrote the Globe's "Over
60" column, which was renamed "Now and Then" in 2001.
Ostensibly aimed at the retired and the elderly, the
column drew in readers of all ages.

"You would think that his column would appeal almost
exclusively to older readers, but I know so many
younger readers who follow Don Murray and have to know
what happened," said Steve Greenlee, Living editor at
the Globe and formerly Mr. Murray's editor.

Effortlessly turning the personal, the private, and
sometimes the painful parts of his life into universal
experiences, Mr. Murray crafted columns in which the
passing of his years became a narrative embraced by
legions of loyal readers.

As his beloved wife, Minnie Mae, declined slowly from
Parkinson's disease, readers were with him as he
savored their remaining years. Silently watching from
the vantage of newsprint, they sat with Mr. Murray
beside her bed in their home and later in the assisted
living facility where she died in February 2005.

When he reflected on the changes wrought in his life
after he suffered a heart attack in the mid-1980s,
readers trembled at his fears and basked in his
triumphs -- one of which was simply living to write
again, and again.

"I have achieved another generation," he wrote in
March 2001 when his column's name changed. "I am no
longer young-old, but at 76, old and looking forward
to graduating to ancient in another 15 years. I had
always thought the title of the column would be 'Over
60' until it could become 'Over 100,' but my editors
suggest that I am so much over 60 that we should
rename it.

"It will be called 'Now and Then' (Minnie Mae's idea)
and will allow me not only to report on the interior
landscape of one who continues to ripen but also to
comment on the external life with the perspective of
an elder."

Donald Morrison Murray was born in Boston and grew up
in Quincy. He had no siblings and, characteristically
frank, described his childhood as unhappy.

"My parents and teachers got together and decided I
was stupid," he wrote last year. "My response was to
develop a private mantra: 'I'm stupid but I can come
in early and stay late.' Surprise. It worked. Good
work habits will beat talent every time."

Mr. Murray was a paratrooper during World War II and
married Ellen Pinkham in 1946. Their marriage ended in
divorce and he graduated from the University of New
Hampshire in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in English.
He went to work as a copyboy at the Herald and became
a staff reporter in 1949.

Two years later he turned to editorial writing and
married Minnie Mae Emmerich, who "was five years older
than I was, an embarrassment her mother never
accepted," he wrote this year.

Mr. Murray was awarded a Pulitzer in 1954 for
editorials "on the 'New Look' in National Defense
which won wide attention for their analysis of changes
in American military policy," according to the
Pulitzer website.

Turning down an offer to become an editor, Mr. Murray
continued to write and started teaching college
writing courses, then moved to New York City, where he
worked briefly for Time magazine. He became a
freelance writer in 1956, a tenuous existence for
someone supporting a family. He began publishing books
and joined the University of New Hampshire faculty in
1963, becoming professor emeritus in 1984.

The university awarded him an honorary doctorate in
1990. Earlier, in 1981, he won the Yankee Quill Award,
awarded by the New England Society of Newspaper
Editors and the New England Chapter of the Society of
Professional Journalists.

As a writing coach, Mr. Murray was revered as he
brought his plainspoken message to classrooms and
newsrooms.

"What Don did was take the mystique and myth out of
writing for so many in newsrooms and elsewhere who
thought you just had to wait for inspiration to come,"
said Chip Scanlan, who teaches writing at the Poynter
Institute and was working for The Providence Journal
when he met Mr. Murray. "He did this with a simple but
powerful message: Good writing may be magical, but
it's not magic. It's a process, a rational series of
steps and decisions that all writers take."

"He said those words and they galvanized me," Scanlan
said. "I think I know what it's like to be an apostle,
because I've been quoting and teaching Don Murray ever
since that day."

For Mr. Murray, each column, each sentence presented
an opportunity to teach, and writing was never the
only lesson. One of his many books, "The Lively
Shadow," was about his middle daughter, Lee, who died
at 20.

"We don't get over the death of those we love," he
wrote in a 1999 column. "Don't tell those who have
suffered such a loss to get over it. Think how
terrible it would be if we could forget."

In addition to his daughter Anne, who lives in
Weymouth, Mr. Murray leaves another daughter, Hannah
Starobin of Mount Kisco, N.Y.; two grandsons; and a
granddaughter.

A funeral service will be announced.